


of a lost country

by self-indulgent-drivel (half_a_league)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9384104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/half_a_league/pseuds/self-indulgent-drivel
Summary: Scars from a war can take a long time to heal.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dragon Pox](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/257552) by Melverne. 



> Title from Delta Rae's song "Is There Anyone Out There". Source material belongs to J.K. Rowling. Ideas for this greatly inspired by Melverne's "Dragon Pox", most notably that Arabella Figg is a former Auror and rescued Harry from the Dursleys, who then grew up in the company of several magical children his age. Mostly just an excuse to play around with stylized writing. As always, playing loose and fast with canon.

In a large home in the countryside, a gather of women sat in the sitting room and had tea. They gossiped as they did about things quite ordinary—the help, their gardens, the unseasonably late spring storms plaguing the countryside—along with things quite _un_ ordinary—what spells used to heat the tea to such a perfect temperature, whether potions were best bottled in glass vials or crystal, whether the newest litter of pookas in the big barn outside had begun to speak yet.

The women were witches, and fine ones at that. One of them was young, and a mother besides. She wore a pretty and neat dress, and spoke with a soft, lovely voice. One had been a mother, and now found herself with a common affliction mothers suffered—age—and the grandchildren that terrible affliction brought with it. Her face was stern, but her voice was kind, and no one but the awful misbehaving sort would ever dare term her as _wicked_. The third had never had children, but found herself with one anyway, and quite a troublemaker he was at that. But even she was neither wicked, nor unkind, nor was any such thing people said old witches were. In fact, as she sipped her tea, her eyes had a lovely glimmer of mischief in them, and her mouth a wonderful, humorous curve.

The three women were good friends, and had been for many years, and none felt out of sorts with each other, though one was quite young in comparison, and one was quite old in comparison, and one was quite a bit of trouble in comparison.

But it wasn’t their friendship, strictly speaking, that had brought them all together on that cold and dreary morning, sipping strong tea as wind and rain lashed the sides of the old manor house. No, the subject that had brought them all together was not even in the same room.  
Made noisy and raucous by the rain, and forbidden from the outside world for fear of the mess they’d surely bring back in with them, the three women’s charges—a grandson, a ward, a daughter, and a best friend—had been banished to the nursery where all three women hoped fervently whatever trouble they could get themselves into would be contained.

And what a fine nursery it was! A fire crackled merrily in the huge stone fireplace, making the whole room rosy with light, and warm besides. The curtains over the wide, tall windows had been pulled back to let in what grey light could be scavenged from the storm. Heavy toy chests were pushed against the walls to join bookshelves brimming with picture books—for which the nursery’s occupants were much too old—adventure novels, mystery books, and the sorts of mild romances little girls often enjoyed. A desk was shoved in the corner and quite covered with papers and parchment and quills and pencils and several types of paints.

And in the center of the room, a fainting couch and a nice loveseat gathered, standing firmly on a warm, soft rug that gave four pairs of feet great protection from the cold wooden floor.

The feet, in direct opposite of the stately women taking tea downstairs, were all quite bare and rather dirty. One pair belong to a rather pudgy boy, scarcely turned nine, and the owner of the nursery. He rested the feet rather comfortably over the arm of the loveseat, lying sideways against the other arm, and slowly and rather listlessly turning the pages of an enormous book of plants.

Any normal child would have been captivated by the book, whose wonderful illustrations _moved about the page_ , but the boy, being a wizard and used to such things, read it tiredly, and his eyes kept slipping shut, as though he would rather be asleep.

The second pair of feet belonged to a girl, draped bonelessly on the fainting couch as though she’d been poured there. A glossy magazine of the sort a young girl oughtn’t have was spread open across her chest, but she didn’t pay it half a mind (thought its pictures moved in much that the book’s illustrations did), instead sucking rather intently on the end of one of her thick, blonde braids and staring at the ceiling.

The third pair of feet belonged to another girl, who was curled up on the wide, warm seat under one of the windows. Previously the chair and couch had been dragged closer to obligingly accommodate her in the other children’s discussions, but she ignored them just as stoutly as they were ignoring each other, instead staring out the window as though hoping to catch even the faintest glimpse of the grounds below. But the rain was much less obliging than her companions had been, and there was nothing for her to look at except endless lashings of water. Her nose was pressed to the pane hard enough to turn it up, but no one in the nursery could see it, as she’d undone her neat braid and her red hair hung about her face in a curtain.

The fourth pair of feet were the dirtiest, and they swung in the air as the boy they belonged to sprawled out imperiously on the thick rug, his head in his hands. There was no book, or magazine, or window to keep him occupied, and though the fire in the grate snapped and popped in an interesting way, he was no more looking into it than he was contemplating the rug.

In fact, the boy’s eyes seemed rather far away, though they looked the liveliest, and every so often whatever he thought about gave him the naughtiest little grin. It was this boy that had been the one to get them exiled to the confines of the nursery—and barefooted at that!—when the lot of them had been caught sliding in their stockinged feet across the empty upstairs hallways.

He’d taken the punishment quite cheerfully, being used to it by then, and was now the busiest of his fellows, planning what spot of mischief to land them all in next.

His name was Harry James Potter, and though his friends just called him ‘Harry’ they were rather used to hearing the whole bit, because his guardian was always calling it out in the sternest voice she could manage, or laughing it when she couldn’t manage, because the trouble he’d stirred up had been too funny to resist.

And speaking of trouble, he rolled over onto his back quite suddenly, and said, “Neville, why is it you can’t go into the east wing of the Manor?”

Neville Longbottom, Harry’s best friend, jerked his eyes open, and shut the book on his lap gratefully. Harry’s mischief making usually began with an innocuous question, like ‘Do you think the house elves will notice if we raid the kitchens while they’re busy doing _other_ things?’ or "I rather think the pookas would _like_ seeing the inside of the manor, don't you?" and all of which usually ended with a great deal of chaos and yelling.

“I dunno,” he said, having never really thought about it, and swung about in his chair until he was sitting more normally.

Drawn into interest, Hannah Abbott stretched, rather cat-like, and sat up as well. “Mummy’s never portioned off part of the house,” she said. “I rather wish she did, though. She’s always making me clean bits of it, and complaining that there’s still dust about.”

Harry, who was well versed in the realm of chores, both as a regular responsibility and as a punishment, nodded sagely. “Cleaning’s droll,” he said easily. “You’re lucky, Nev, that the house elves do it.”

Hannah sighed. “Wish we had house elves,” she said. “I’d trade my brothers off for a set of them.”

Susan Bones, who was also wise in the way of chores and more-so in the ways of _her_ best friend’s complaining, saw fit to turn around in her window seat and join them. “You’d trade your brothers off for a Sugar Quill and a song,” she said, making them all laugh.

Hannah’s brothers, both several years older than her, were often a topic of gossip and complaint. The nursery room children had, in fact, spent a lengthy twenty minutes earlier sympathizing with Hannah as she bemoaned the fact that _they_ weren’t sent off to their friends’ house at the first sign of a good rain, never mind that this was because they were away in boarding school, or than Hannah had begged to go to the Longbottom Manor as soon as she heard Susan’s aunt was sending her there post-haste.

The others were quite willing to be distracted with the familiar and well-worn topic, but Harry was still stuck on his question.

Longbottom Manor was a big house and estate, and having been friends with Neville for quite a long time, the four of them were well acquainted with it. They’d ran down its hallways, and made great messes in the gardens and barn, and slid down banisters, and been scared by Boggarts lurking in long-closed cupboards and closets. But in the long three years they’d all been coming to play at the Manor, they’d never once been inside the east wing, which was locked up with a big set of keys Bamsy, Madam Longbottom’s head house elf, carried.

Harry, who rather enjoyed a good mystery, thought it was the perfect thing to spend a rainy day finding out.

“Really, Neville,” he said, interrupting Hannah’s spirited regaling of the Howler her mother had sent her brother, “haven’t you ever been in there?”

He waited with baited breath and Neville screwed up his face and tried to remember. “I don’t think so,” he admitted at last, to the disappointment of the three of them, Susan and Hannah now sensing this could be the source of a great big adventure.

(Not that much with Harry _wasn’t_ an adventure.)

A bit ashamed of disappointing them, Neville added, “I think I asked her about it, when I was younger. She told me it wasn’t my business to mind.”

They all groaned at that. Augusta Longbottom was stubborn, and while she didn’t mind a bit of chaos about the house when they all came over, she was very much of the mind that children had no place in an adult’s business.

“I think that’s rather queer,” Susan said at last, and fumbled an elastic from her pocket to tie her hair back with. “Auntie would never shut up a part of a house, though it’s not like she _can_ with our flat. And she’d never tell me not to mind it if she did.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “It’s odd.”

Hannah, who’d been sucking on her braid again as she thought, swept it out of her mouth. “Maybe it’s for the house elves!” she cried. “So they don’t have to work as hard. After all, it isn’t like you can’t live just as well in the west wing, Nev!”

“But she’d tell me if it was just that!” Neville said. “She’s always talking about how the elves have so much to do, and she ought to take on another.”

Harry, who’d had practically all afternoon to build the place up in his head, said, “Maybe it’s filled with treasure!”

“She’d keep treasure in Gringotts,” Susan told him, having more experience with household matters than the rest of them, and feeling very mature about it. “Like they do with money.”  
Hannah, who fancied adventure stories more than anything, hugged herself and shivered. 

“Maybe it’s _cursed_ ,” she said, and they all traded glances. They were all afraid of and therefore interested in cursed objects. A whole cursed wing of a house was a terrible and tantalizing possibility.

“Imagine being that close to danger and not even knowing it!” Susan exclaimed.

Neville drew his knees to his chest and folded his arms around them. “If it’s dangerous,” he decided at once, “we should leave it alone.” Neville’s parents had been cursed when he was just a baby, leaving him to live with his Gran, and visiting them every week in the hospital was sad and frightening.

The other children knew about this, Neville having told them ages ago, but it wasn’t brought up very often, and it seemed easy to forget.

Hannah and Susan exchanged glances, and Harry, ashamed at not having remembered, got up and drifted over to pat Neville’s shoulder. “That’s alright then,” he said and Neville let his legs down and smiled at them gratefully.

For anyone else, this would have been satisfactory as an answer, and the matter would have been dropped. But the longer the rain poured down outside, the harder each of them thought about the east wing of the house.

Neville, who’d never thought about it before, now felt incredibly curious. He imagined what his Gran would have locked away for so long, and thought that if it _was_ cursed, she probably would have brought in a Curse-Breaker by then. She took their safety very seriously.

Hesitantly, picking at a thread on his trousers, Neville said, “I don’t _think_ it’s cursed.” And then, with greater surety. “Gran would have told me if it was cursed, if only so I know to stay away from it.”

“Or she would have told my Mummy,” Hannah said, “and she would have told me.”

In fact, if the east wing of her Manor had been cursed, Madam Longbottom would have told Harry’s guardian, being good friends with her, but he didn’t say anything because she most assuredly wouldn’t have passed the knowledge onto him, knowing that it’d only tempt him to go exploring. “Well, whatever the matter is,” Harry said, “I think Neville should know. He _lives_ here, so it’s his house too.”

Susan’s Auntie, who had raised Susan since she was a baby, told Susan all about important things that might affect them both, and then they talked about what to do about it. Being treated like such an adult, Susan felt that Neville’s Gran not telling about something as important as a possibly cursed house was very unfair, and she told him so.

“Neville’s got a right to know,” she said stoutly. “Harry’s right, this is Neville’s house too.”

“But she’ll never tell me,” Neville moaned. “And if I ask again she’ll make me write lines for whinging.”  
They had all, at one point or another, been sat down from their playing and written lines for Madam Longbottom. She took great pleasure in critiquing their handwriting as they did so, and to add that to an already boring and terrible afternoon was unimaginable.

“Well,” Harry said as he scratched the back of his leg with a foot, “if it probably isn’t cursed, then it shouldn’t be too dangerous to go in and find out ourselves why it’s been all shut out.”

They looked around at each other, none of them quite wanting to agree, but none of them certainly wanting to refuse.

“It’s only a house,” Hannah said at last. Her love of adventure books was too great, and as her mother predicted each time she took them away from Hannah late at night, she was going to get herself in trouble over it. “And Mummy says I’m perfectly safe here, so I don’t see why we can’t.”

They all turned to Neville, who had been biting his nails as he thought. “Alright,” he agreed at last.

But Susan, who was the most practical out of all of them, had already thought of the real problem. “How’re we going to get in, then?” she demanded. “Neville said already, all the doors are locked.”

This put a good pause on the idea. There were, of course, spells to unlock doors, and they’d be poor witches and wizards if they didn’t _know_ any, but they were also nine, and as such, none of them were allowed wands.

“Didn’t you steal a wand once, Harry?” Susan asked after a long moment. At his blank look, she pressed on cheerfully. “Auntie said you got into loads of trouble because of it, and you couldn’t go to Fortescue’s with us. Remember?”

Harry did, in fact, remember. He’d led his new guardian on a merry chase to get it back, having filched it from the pocket of her house coat as she dozed at the breakfast table, and when she finally caught him he’d received one of the few hidings she’d ever given him. Blushing, though it was hard to tell with how dark he was, he reluctantly agreed.

“Er, I did,” he said, glaring at Susan for bringing it up. He didn’t want to look a coward in front of his friends now that they’d agreed to go, but being unable to sit for the day before his guardian had taken pity and offered him a balm for his bottom had made him rather leery of trying it again.

“Everyone’s taking tea with Gran,” Neville reminded Susan, catching Harry’s wide-eyed look and coming to his rescue. “No way we could get a wand with them all together like that.”

This brought another round of agreement, and a longer time to think. They couldn’t ask the house elves, who’d surely go and tell Madam Longbottom, and they couldn’t magic the door open, and as they’d learned on previous misadventures on rainy days, none of them were any good at picking locks. The mystery books made it sound so easy, but all of Hannah’s hair pins had broken and she’d gotten a sound scolding when she went home.

Harry, who’d suggested the adventure in the first place, felt responsible for finding a way into the mysterious east wing. He was thinking as hard as he could, when Susan, still at the window seat, leaned back a bit too hard, and popped the window open.

“Oh!” she cried, in no danger of falling, the windows in the nursery not opening very wide, but getting wet all the same.

She leaped a way in a panic, and Harry, who had already been standing, rushed to close the window. The latch, an old and stubborn one, had trouble catching, and he battled with it fiercely, not minding the front of his shirt getting soaked. Just as it caught, locking the window shut again, he had a wonderful idea.

The windows in the _nursery_ didn’t open very wide, but they all knew that the other windows did, having watched in horror and delight as Neville had gotten dangled out of one at his eighth birthday party. They’d known he wouldn’t get hurt, as one’s magic would protect oneself from such things, but no one thought his uncle would actually drop him. Screaming, Neville had bounced across the patio and straight down the back lawn, and burst into hysterical laughter.

Of course they had been forbidden right after from trying that themselves. Susan’s Auntie was a smart woman who knew trouble when she saw it, and they’d all been put-out when she'd made them promise not to go jumping out of windows, not matter how fun it’d seemed.

No _jumping_ , Harry thought. But she hadn’t said anything about climbing out of them, specifically if no one had any intention of leaping off the roof, and was, instead, going to just shimmy open another window and slip right back in.

**Author's Note:**

> Keep in mind the user name, folks.


End file.
